24. Kidney Thieves

*Contains nudity*

“Did you find him?” I asked a little out of breath as Knox, Jemma, Roland, and Evian reentered the campsite from different directions the same time as me and Abby.

“No, not a trace,” Roland answered and Knox just shook his head no.

“Well where the hell could he have gone? And he didn’t say anything to you at all Ro?”

“Like I said Dude was actin’ funny I shrugged it off as him bein’ high as fuck and went to bed. I had no idea he was gonna pull a Houdini.”

“He couldn’t have gotten far, he didn’t take any water or food,” Abby spoke up as she pulled the basket closer towards the center of the group. “We need to find him before something happens to him out there!”

“Not uh, hold up I ain’t with that. Now we all knew the deal, walk as far as we can to make it back to civilization once the sun was up. We already wasted two hours running around these damn woods looking for his stupid ass with Lord only knows lurking in the bushes. I’m sorry but Chazz is gone and we can’t just sit around hoping he shows up again,” Evian remarked as she scooped her bag up from the ground and started walking.

“I’m with Evian on this one man. I mean Chazz is yall friend; nothin’ personal but if dude wants to get high and ditch us in the middle of the woods then that’s his problem. I’m not about to wait for some shit to happen waitin’ on him.”

Knox shrugged as well and wrapped his arm around Jemma’s shoulder and pulled her along behind Roland and Evian. I looked at Abby and sighed and motioned towards the others. “Come on Abby, let’s go.”

“What? Go? No! This is crazy; we can’t just leave him out here.”

“We’re not leaving him but we can’t stand here and wait for that storm to come closer and closer to us. We’re gonna go, find help and come back for him,” I reasoned with her and saw her shoulders dropped in defeat. I liked that she was all about helping anyone and staying in a group but Evian made a great point.

Time was wasting on us getting out of this place without trouble and I couldn’t risk anyone else getting hurt while waiting on Chazz. “Come on,” I reached my hand for her and waited for her to grab the basket of food before starting after the others and back out to the road.

Occasionally she would look back behind us as if she was waiting on Chazz to pop out at any moment and then sigh in disappointment when he wasn’t there. I squeezed her hand in mine a little and pulled her against my side hoping to soothe her a little and she smiled up at me. “What would make him wander off from the group like that?”

“There’s no telling Abby. I don’t really know him well enough to make any type of guess though he’s Knox’s friend and roommate. I’ve only met him a few times before this. He’s always seemed like the loner type to me though; at least he didn’t seem to have many friends.”

“OH MY GOD!” Jemma screamed and rushed back towards where me and Abby were. She grabbed her friend away from me and Abby looked at me curiously as she tried consoling her friend who shook and shivered violently in her arms crying.

“Jem? What is it Jem? Is it Chazz?” Abby asked and I excused myself from her side and started towards the others.

“What’s wrong? Why have we stopped?” I asked making my way to the front of the group. When I finally made it up towards where Roland and Knox stood I found the reason why Jemma screamed the way she did. Just up ahead was a large roadblock, some toppled trees sat crookedly across the path which explained why there hadn’t been much traffic in the area. 

But what I saw next was enough to make me do a double take and back away quickly. There were three cars and a city bus crashed into the side barricades, one on top of the other in a massive pile up. Bodies lined the woods and the sides of the road and there was blood everywhere. I rubbed a hand over my eyes unsure I was seeing what I thought I was and turned back to the dazed looks in everyone else’s face. “It’s this road man, it’s cursed,” Knox mumbled and dropped to his knees with his mouth wide open in terror.

What the hell is going on?

Brooke awoke in an unfamiliar bathroom. Looking around she realized that she was lying completely naked and submerged up to her neck in a bathtub filled with ice. Groggy and disoriented, she frantically tried to remember how she had ended up here. She remembered being out with her friends at a bar. There was a group of guys that had come up to their table and offered to buy them drinks. Being on Spring Break they thought it was fun and let them buy them drink after drink. Afterwards they went dancing and that’s when her memory became a little fuzzy. I was drugged, she thought and pulled herself up in the water.

Feeling a throbbing sting on her side, Brooke felt into the water at the ache in her side. Her eyes snapped shut and she winced in pain as she found two incisions on her sides that seemed hastily sewn. It was then she noticed the table of tools sitting across from her and the jar that appeared to contain kidneys, her kidneys! Brooke had no idea who could have done this to her or even if they would be back but she needed to find a way out, quickly!

Confused and scared Brooke frantically looked around the room in search of something to help her. Noticing her cellphone sitting on a small stool behind her, she carefully reached over the side of the tub and pulled herself up. “Ahh,” she grunted as intense pain ripped through her body. And as she fell she felt the stitches tear apart, covering the floor in even more blood. She lay for a moment, sobbing to herself and trying to coax her body to move. If she didn’t reach the phone she would certainly die. The phone slipped through her numb, bloody fingers, hitting the floor with a clink.

Blinded by sudden fear as she felt the blood pour from her side, she punched in the number to 9-1-1 as quickly as she could before she lost consciousness. The operator picked up on the other end. “What’s your emergency?” the woman asked urgently on the other end.

“I just woke up in a bathtub full of ice.” Brooke whispered into the speaker.

“And let me guess, someone’s stolen your kidneys.”

“Yes! Please help!”

“Look Ma’am I know it’s nearly Halloween and you and your college friends are trying to make it into the sorority of your choice but we’ve been warned about these prank calls. Please find a better way to entertain yourself and tell your friends not to waste their time either.” The operator hung up leaving Brooke stunned. 

Footsteps pounded up the hallway behind the closed door and she felt her body tense in terror as the door flew open and a large man rushed inside the room with her. She screamed and quickly he grabbed her by the hair. The feeling of a thousand daggers pulling at her scalp and side caused an indescribable amount of pain to surge through her body as the man sank her head into the tub of water and held her under. 

She struggled and pushed against the sides of the tub, fighting as hard as she could to get her head above water. The harder she fought, the more water she drank until finally she went limp in her attacker’s grip. Laughing wickedly the man pulled away from her nude body and stood above her momentarily as he watched her sink farther into the water lifelessly.

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